Chappell Roan

Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (born February 19, 1998), known professionally as Chappell Roan ( ), is an American singer and songwriter. She is known for her camp and drag queen–influenced aesthetic. Her debut EP, ''School Nights'' (2017), was released by Atlantic Records. After its commercial failure, she was dropped from the label. Her debut studio album, ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess'' (2023), was released through Island Records and received critical acclaim. The album garnered a cult following and became a sleeper hit.

Roan rose to prominence in 2024 with the single "Good Luck, Babe!", which reached number four on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and became a global top-five single. It was a catalyst for the success of her debut album, which eventually topped the charts in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand and reached number two on the US ''Billboard'' 200. Several album tracks subsequently entered various charts, including " Hot to Go!" and "Pink Pony Club", which both reached the top five in the UK. At the 67th Grammy Awards, Roan was nominated for all the " Big Four" awards, winning Best New Artist.

Early life

Kayleigh Rose Amstutz was born in Willard, Missouri, on February 19, 1998, the oldest of four children. Her mother, Kara ( Chappell), is a veterinarian; her father, Dwight Amstutz, is now a retired Naval Reservist who also managed the family's veterinary practice in Springfield, Missouri, and earlier trained as a registered nurse, working in neurological and burns intensive care units. Her uncle is Missouri State Representative Darin Chappell.

She has described her hometown and her upbringing as conservative and Christian. During her childhood, she attended church three times a week and spent some summers at Christian camps. In a 2023 ''Variety'' interview, she said that she struggled with her upbringing and snuck out often: "I just wanted to feel like a good person, but I had this part of me that wanted to escape so bad."

Roan began playing the piano when she was 10 or 11 years old and began taking lessons at the age of 12. She performed publicly for the first time at age 13, singing "The Christmas Song" at her school's talent show, which she won. When she was about 14 years old, she auditioned for ''America's Got Talent'' without success. At 14 or 15 years old, she began uploading covers to YouTube, drawing attention from various record labels. She began songwriting as she entered her teen years. She graduated a year early from Willard High School. Roan described missing many childhood experiences in the "messy" beginning of her music career, including her prom and high school graduation.

Career

2015–2022: Career beginnings

Roan began uploading on her YouTube channel in 2013, only posting covers and occasional original pieces. Along with her online presence, she also performed around her hometown, as well as Springfield, Missouri, from 2012 to 2015. In November 2014, Roan uploaded her original song "Die Young" to YouTube under the name Kayleigh Rose. She wrote the song while attending summer camp at Interlochen Center for the Arts, which she said "changed my trajectory forever". She subsequently traveled to New York for several musical showcases, leading to her signing with music label Atlantic Records in May 2015. In 2016, she adopted the stage name Chappell Roan in honor of her grandfather Dennis K. Chappell, who died of brain cancer that same year. The name is a combination of her grandfather's last name and a word taken from his favorite song, "The Strawberry Roan" by Curley Fletcher. She has also expressed dislike for her birth name.

On August 3, 2017, Roan released her first single, "Good Hurt". The song was reviewed favorably in ''Interview'', which praised her "striking maturity and surprisingly deep vocals". On September 22, 2017, she released an extended play (EP) titled ''School Nights'' through Atlantic Records. Also in 2017, she supported Vance Joy on his Lay It On Me Tour. During this time, Roan lived with her parents in Springfield, Missouri, flying with them to Los Angeles or New York City when necessary. In 2018, Roan moved to Los Angeles. She has since stated this was the first time she felt able to live openly as a queer woman, as well as feeling "overwhelmed with complete love and acceptance", allowing her to begin "writing songs as the real er. From January to March 2018, she toured the United States with Declan McKenna.

Roan began working with songwriter and producer Dan Nigro in late 2018. In April 2020, Roan released "Pink Pony Club", which she has described as a "hard left turn" from ''School Nights''. The single was produced by Nigro, and its music video was directed by Griffin Stoddard. Roan has cited a visit to The Abbey, a gay bar in West Hollywood, as the inspiration for the song. She said the song expressed her desire to become a go-go dancer in Los Angeles, stating, "truthfully, I'm not confident enough to do that, so I wrote a song about it."

Roan released two more singles, "Love Me Anyway" and "California", in May 2020. However, her releases were not profitable enough for Atlantic, who dropped Roan from the label in August 2020. Shortly after, Roan returned to Los Angeles in October 2020 to continue working on her music independently while working a series of odd jobs, including as a production assistant and in a donut shop. That December, ''USA Today'' ranked "Pink Pony Club" third on a list of the "10 best songs of 2020"; an accompanying description characterized it as dance-pop that "earnestly elebratesqueer culture, acceptance and chasing your dreams". A year after its release, ''Vulture'' described "Pink Pony Club" as "the Song of Summer 2021", calling it a "synthy infectious bangarang". By , the song had been streamed more than 10 million times on Spotify.

In early 2021, the success of Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" shifted Nigro's focus from Roan as he worked on ''Sour'' with Rodrigo. Roan was unable to find a collaborator whom she liked as much. She briefly moved back to Missouri and worked at a drive-through while continuing to work on her music independently.

By February 2022, Roan had earned a publishing deal with Sony, and reunited with Nigro again to create and release "Naked in Manhattan". The song was her first release as an independent artist. It was described by NPR as a "queer girl bop" with lyrics that are "tender, nostalgic" and "flirty yet uncertain". While working with Nigro in an adjacent studio to Olivia Rodrigo, Roan recorded backing vocals on three of Rodrigo's songs, including "Can't Catch Me Now". Roan was selected as the opening act on Rodrigo's Sour Tour and for Fletcher on her Girl of My Dreams Tour.

In August 2022, she released a third independent single, "Femininomenon". ''Earmilk'' described the song as "so fun and loud but so intricate" and noted it was different from Roan's past releases. Roan stated that the song, which was produced by Nigro, was an attempt to "get away with being as ridiculous as I possibly can". An accompanying self-directed music video featured Roan riding a dirt bike. Roan released another single, " Casual", which she had begun working on with Nigro in 2020. The song, produced by Nigro, criticizes a romantic partner who refuses to commit and was inspired by Roan's brief relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic that ended with her partner saying they had met someone else.

2023–2024: Breakthrough with ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess''

In February 2023, Roan embarked on the Naked in North America Tour, her debut headlining tour. Each stop on the tour had a theme, with Roan suggesting outfits for fans while making her own camp costumes herself. Inspired by Orville Peck, Roan chose to book drag queens as openers for the tour. Concerts from the tour received positive reviews in ''The Harvard Crimson'' and ''Variety'', with Jem Aswad describing it as a concert where "you recognize when a new-ish artist's career is about to blast off" similar to Lorde in 2013 and Billie Eilish in 2019. In March 2023, Roan released " Casual", followed later that year by the release of subsequent singles "Kaleidoscope", " Red Wine Supernova" and " Hot to Go!". That same month, Roan signed with Amusement Records, an imprint of Island Records and owned by her producer, Nigro, after meeting with nine labels.

On September 22, 2023, Roan released her debut full-length album, ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,'' and began her second headlining tour, the Midwest Princess Tour. The tour, ending in the spring of 2024, traveled across North America and had shows in London, Paris, Berlin, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Amsterdam. Roan donated $1 per ticket sold to the nonprofit For the Gworls and opened each show with drag performers. ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess'' was included in various best-albums-of-2023 year-end lists, such as those by ''The A.V. Club'', ''Time'', ''Nylon'', '' Dork'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Billboard'', and ''Vogue''. It was also listed as one of ''Pitchfork''s 22 Best Pop Albums of 2023 and was named PopBuzz's Number One Album of 2023.

Roan opened for Olivia Rodrigo's Guts World Tour in the United States and Canada from February to April 2024. In Roan's first week of the tour, her streams rose by 32 percent. Also in February, Roan was a musical guest on ''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert''. In March, NPR Music released Roan's ''Tiny Desk Concert'' performance.

In April 2024, Roan released the single "Good Luck, Babe!", describing it as "the first song of the next chapter". The song speaks about compulsory heterosexuality, describing a woman trying to deny her romantic feelings for Roan and women in general. Praised by ''Billboard'' as a "well-deserved breakthrough", the song received 7 million streams in its first week, was listed in the Spotify top ten, and debuted at number 77 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The song was Roan's fastest to hit 100 million streams on the platform. By June, the song became her first top 20 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and by September, it reached a peak of number four, becoming her first top ten song on the chart. Although not included on her debut album, the single's success was a catalyst for propelling it to worldwide recognition. In June 2024, ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess'' entered the top ten on the ''Billboard'' 200 for the first time, with over 40,000 equivalent album units sold. By August, the album had reached number two.

Also in April, Roan performed at Coachella. At this time, Roan saw growing success on Spotify, with her monthly listeners increasing more than 500% from February to April. As reported by ''Billboard'', by June 2024, Roan's weekly streams had grown by more than twenty-fold from the start of the year.

In June, Roan revealed she had declined an invitation from the White House to perform for that year's Pride celebration. During the Governors Ball Music Festival, Roan stated, "we want liberty, justice and freedom for all. When you do that, that's when I'll come", mentioning the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and transgender rights. Roan later revealed that she considered attending, but instead of performing music, she would recite poetry by Palestinian women. Roan said that her publicist was supportive of the idea, but warned her that doing so at the White House would likely compromise her and her family's safety, which is why she decided to decline the invitation instead. During her performance at the Governors Ball Music Festival, Roan debuted an unreleased song titled "The Subway", continuing to work towards a new album. At a concert in June, Roan spoke to the crowd about dealing with her rapid increase in popularity, stating "I think my career is just kind of going really fast and it's really hard to keep up. I'm just being honest, I'm having a hard time today. ..This is all I've ever wanted—it's just heavy sometimes." Following her performance at Lollapalooza in August, she drew the biggest daytime set and largest crowds ever seen at the festival.

In September, Roan performed at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards and won Best New Artist. She dedicated the trophy to queer and trans people. In October 2024, she reached number 1 for the first time on the ''Billboard'' Artist 100, coinciding with the biggest sales week ever of her debut album. Roan appeared as the musical guest on ''Saturday Night Live'' on November 2, 2024, along with host John Mulaney, where she performed and teased a new country-tinged song titled "The Giver". Roan appeared in the Netflix special ''A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter'' on December 6, 2024. In January 2025, Roan was named the winner of the Sound of 2025 poll of musicians and music experts, organized annually by the BBC.

In February 2025 at the 67th Grammy Awards, Roan won her first Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In her acceptance speech, she called for record labels to provide artists with a living wage and healthcare, saying, "Labels, we got you, but do you got us?" Roan's work was also nominated for other awards, with ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess'' being nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Good Luck, Babe!" being nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. Following Roan's Grammy acceptance speech, the former music executive Jeff Rabhan wrote an essay via ''The Hollywood Reporter'' criticizing Roan's acceptance speech as naive and saying labels do not have responsibilities to artists outside paying advances and royalties. The piece went viral, and Roan responded by challenging Rabhan to match a $25,000 donation to artists experiencing financial difficulty.

2025–present: "The Giver" and forthcoming album

On March 14, 2025, Roan released "The Giver" on all platforms, her second single intended for her new album after "Good Luck, Babe!" almost a year earlier. In June, she embarked on a new tour, titled the "Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things Tour".

Artistry

Roan writes most of her songs with co-writers, most prominently her producer, Nigro, with her song "Kaleidoscope" being the only song from her debut album written solely by Roan herself. After the release of her debut single, "Good Hurt", her style was described in ''Interview'' as "pop sound ..infused with a dark and unsettling tone that underscores her intense, somber lyrics." In 2018, she described her musical style as a mix of organic and electronic sounds, with a pop tone, and as "dark pop with ballad undertones". In her songs written while she was a teenager, according to ''Atwood Magazine'', she "brought the hardship and turbulence of our teenaged years to life with a candidness and vividness seldom seen from her peers." Roan describes her music as "kind of the fairytale version of what happened in real life" as her persona is a larger-than-life version of her real self. In 2024, ''Billboard'' described her as an "innovative art-pop auteur".

Voice

Even in her early days, Roan received praise for her vocal abilities. In 2014, Troye Sivan and Connor Franta commended the then-16-year-old Roan's singing. Sivan said that he had not heard a voice like Roan's since Adele, and Franta called her a "vocally gifted goddess". Despite this, Roan has criticized her past singing, saying that she never had a "proper" vocal lesson until December 2022 and that she'd been "singing wrong" for 10 years. In a '' Vox'' feature, Constance Grady described Roan's vocal style in her early music as the "indie girl slur that was so popular at the time" and likened it to singing in cursive. She named "Pink Pony Club" as the song that marked the beginning of Roan's vocal evolution.

Roan has been described as having a soprano vocal range, and has demonstrated use of the whistle register on songs such as " After Midnight". Writing for the official Grammy Awards site, Kelly Nguyen lauded Roan's "near-perfect vocal stability". In a review of Roan's live show at Heaven, a gay club in London, Poppie Platt of ''The Daily Telegraph'' praised Roan's "soaring, pitch-perfect high notes", writing that each note "shudder dwith feeling".

Inspiration

Roan has cited Kate Bush as a prominent influence. She has also cited inspirations including the artist Abbey Watkins, the film ''The Beguiled'', and musical artists alt-J, Stevie Nicks, Ellie Goulding, Karen Carpenter, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey. In 2023, on an exclusive interview for ''Pop Crave'', Roan stated that she listened to Lorde, Del Rey and Goulding throughout her entire high school years. She has stated that the song "Stay" by Rihanna inspired her to begin writing music. In 2023, a ''Variety'' article described Roan as "glammy and pop and embracing her femininity and ..very queer-positive." Roan credited Madonna, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj as women who made queer music mainstream at the red carpet of the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. She has also cited Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj as inspiration for her attitude towards making people feel confident with her music. She spoke in admiration of Ariana Grande, calling herself "an Arianator". Discovering artists like Katy Perry, Kesha, Britney Spears, and Pink during her adolescence also influenced her to start writing music and construct her onstage persona. She stated she was raised on Christian rock during her childhood but never identified with it, instead having a curiosity about pop music.

Roan's makeup and hair is primarily inspired by drag makeup, including queens like Violet Chachki. Her makeup also takes inspiration from Boy George, 1980s punk fashion, and Vivienne Westwood. Roan described her makeup looks for the Coachella festival as "Paris Hilton and James St. James or Walt Cassidy became one and put on a drag show." She is also heavily inspired by the Club Kids scene. While on ''The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,'' Roan stated her stage looks reference horror movies, burlesque, and theater. She also described her outlook for her on-stage costumes, "I love looking pretty and scary. Or, like, pretty and tacky. Or just not pretty. I love that too. I just think it's just not serious, I love that fans find such deep meanings to things and I'm just like, 'I don't know, I thought I looked hot.' Like, I don't know if it's anything more than that." Roan considers herself a drag queen with her own persona, stating, "I've never fully understood why women shouldn't be allowed to do drag because – yes, I do drag! ..It feels like they don't like women doing certain things. Another man trying to tell a woman what to do. Just try telling me what to do! I'm a drag queen – whether you like it when women do it or not."

Cultural influence

Roan's success has led her to be called a "queer pop icon", "a superstar in the making", and a "visionary performer". Roan has been credited with leading a "lesbian pop renaissance" on the music charts and within the cultural zeitgeist. Roan's music brought the concept of compulsory heterosexuality into the forefront of mainstream pop music. She has been praised for her "unapologetic authenticity" and "expression of her queerness and femininity" in her music and live performances, inspiring young women to embrace their own sexuality. She has also been applauded for her image "rejecting the male gaze" within the pop landscape. Roan has been praised for her "punkish" attitude towards the status quo for queer performers and applauded for "rewriting the rules of lovelorn pop". ''Rolling Stone'' described watching Roan's performances as "like watching Michelangelo craft the statue of David in real time".

In 2024, Roan gave a guest lecture at Harvard Medical School. When searching for Roan's name on Google, users are prompted with "Did you mean: your favorite artist's favorite artist", which references a viral clip of Roan introducing herself on stage at the Coachella Music Festival. This was inspired by Roan's favorite drag performer and now drag mother Sasha Colby. Roan joked the search term was caused by a "random twink who works at Google" and stated that she modified Colby's phrase as she hoped Colby would one day watch and recognize her. The two met in July 2024 while performing at Capitol Hill Block Party, where Colby asked Roan to join the House of Colby as her daughter.

In August 2024, the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign released a baseball cap with the words "Harris Walz" in a similar style to Roan's "Midwest Princess" merchandise baseball cap. In response, Roan tweeted "is this real". Roan refused to endorse the Harris campaign, but confirmed she would vote for Harris, arguing "endorsing and voting are completely different." Justifying the decision, she said, "Fuck Trump for fucking real, but fuck some of the shit that has gone down in the Democratic Party that has failed people like me and you — and, more so, Palestine, and more so, every marginalized community in the world."

Personal life

Roan currently lives in Los Angeles, California. She is a lesbian and demisexual. As of September 2024, Roan was in a relationship with an undisclosed woman who is not involved in the music industry.

Though raised as a Christian, Roan no longer identifies with the church and has said that her current relationship with religion is "evolving". She was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder at 22, which contributed to her difficult childhood. She has described therapy and medication as important facets in caring for and maintaining her mental health. Roan has said that the idea of her trademark " tacky pop star" appearance came to her while discussing her inner child with her therapist. While "Chappell Roan" began solely as a stage name, she has since called it her drag persona and likened it to Hannah Montana, describing the character as "more open and confident ..especially regarding sex" than her real self. Her drag mother is Rupaul's Drag Race season 15 winner, Sasha Colby.

Following her rapid commercial breakthrough, Roan publicly addressed the pressures of her newfound fame and condemned behavior from some fans that she considered "creepy" and "invasive". In multiple social media posts, she expressed feeling unsafe as a result of public harassment and stalking from fans, which included attempts to contact members of her family.

Filmography

Film

Television

Podcast

Discography

;Studio albums:
* ''The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess'' (2023)

Awards and nominations

Tours

Headlining

* Naked in North America Tour (2023)
* The Midwest Princess Tour (2023–2024)
* Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things Tour (2025)

Supporting

* Vance Joy – Lay It On Me Tour (2017)
* Coast Modern – On Tour (2017)
* Declan McKenna – What Do You Think About The Car? Tour (2018)
* Olivia Rodrigo – Sour Tour (2022)
* Ben Platt – The Reverie Tour (2022)
* Fletcher – Girl of My Dreams Tour (2022)
* Olivia Rodrigo – Guts World Tour (2024)

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roan, Chappell

1998 births
Living people
21st-century American LGBTQ people
21st-century American singer-songwriters
21st-century American women singers
AFAB queens
American activists for Palestinian solidarity
American drag queens
American former Christians
American lesbian musicians
American lesbian writers
American LGBTQ singer-songwriters
American musicians with disabilities
American queer musicians
American sopranos
American women in electronic music
American women pop singers
Atlantic Records artists
Brit Award winners
Demisexual people
Grammy Award winners
Island Records artists
Lesbian singer-songwriters
LGBTQ musicians with disabilities
LGBTQ people from Missouri
MTV Video Music Award winners
People from Greene County, Missouri
People with bipolar disorder
Singer-songwriters from Missouri
Singers with disabilities
Lesbian singers